


The Woman in Blue

by vienne_la_nuit



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Female Character, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 16:31:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6573652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vienne_la_nuit/pseuds/vienne_la_nuit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cat meets a strange woman of her own age during a gallery opening.</p><p>[A story about Kara arriving in time with Kal-El on Earth, only she doesn't get neither adopted, nor fostered. This deals with feelings of never belonging, not finding one's place, of loneliness and alienation. It is also an AU story, where Kara does age, despite her Kryptonian genes.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Woman in Blue

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't want to interrupt the flow of the story with descriptions of art objects. But in order to help you visualising the discussed paintings I made a post about them:
> 
> http://keekmenta.tumblr.com/post/142918405882/discussed-paintings-in-twib-ch1
> 
> I want to thank my good friend M., who gave this the first read and encouraged me.

 

Cat has never liked gallery openings.            
She can’t shake the feeling that these events are performances in dishonesty.  Elaborate façades, masks are put on, lies breathed out, false-smiles flashed around.  Carefully crafted images are tended to, potentially useful connections are kept alive.  In this theatrics of deceitfulness art and artists themselves become colourful spots in the background, where the main act, the projected image of one’s self dominates the stage.  Cat’s journalistic side that strives for the unapologetic, ugly, naked truth is disgusted.  Worse, she is also reminded of her mother by these lying, vicious masses of fake people and their sand box-sized power plays.

She supposes she is bitter.  She knows her disillusioned view of gallery openings originates in just who in this already select high society gets invited to these events: wealthy people, who only care about their images and have zero understanding of art.  Not that Cat herself would know much about art, but she is at least interested.  And she always, always uses her name and power to make a statement at the few openings she does attend.

Tonight’s show is a perfect example of that.  The exhibition is dedicated to contemporary Iranian female artists.  Whenever Cat gets invited to a gallery opening, which shows women’s works, she always accepts.  She feels it is her duty as a decent human being to chip away at the patriarchy wherever she can.  The fact that she is a wealthy woman and can support the work of other women and perhaps acquire a few pieces of art in the process are just icings on the cake.   
However, in attending tonight’s exhibition she has a different, a more personal angle as well.  She is intrigued, excited to learn something new, because she knows nothing of contemporary Iranian art.

As she idly roams the well-lit halls, her pumps slowly clicking against the marble floor, her eyes glide from colourful art objects interrupted by blank, white walls to paintings and drawings.  She can’t help but loose herself in vivid colours, in forms, in a language and culture she doesn’t understand.  She is truly enraptured.

So much so that she can ignore the normally so aggravating drivel by those few people, who actively seem to want to analyse, try to translate every object, every brush stroke into words.  Cat has to roll her eyes at them.  She has always found amusing, how most of these people wear black with thick-rimmed glasses and self-important faces.                
She prefers to quietly take in the pieces, memorise the artists, whose work manages to fascinate or overwhelm her and look them up in the quite of her own home, or drop by their studios later personally.  That’s why she ignores these people and roams the hall by herself.

The exhibition’s organisation is rather straight forward, minimalistic even.  The first room, a hall is dedicated to traditional Persian culture-inspired art objects, such as miniatures, calligraphies or Islamic geometric forms.  The second, significantly smaller room is reserved for abstract, expressionist or figurative paintings.

As Cat finishes taking in the last painting in the hall, she slowly turns her back to the canvas and takes a step sideways.  However how disappointing she might find certain crowds, she can’t help but observe them at one point in the evening.  Her natural curiosity to understand how people work drives her to seek out their stories behind their words, façades and gestures.  Tonight is no exception of that.

True to her expectations, there are several groups of middle-aged white people, who dress without a shred of taste.  After all, wearing fashion industry’s biggest names doesn’t equal with having style or an acceptable appearance.  Strangely enough, in almost each group’s centre there is an exceptionally loud man dressed either in garish colours or wearing a red scarf with a tuxedo or something similarly wannabe-outlandish that is supposed to set him apart from the crowd.  All of them have a loud, booming laugh, use over the top, wide gestures, no doubt mansplaining their importance and “uniqueness”.  Around them equally boring wealthy people are hanging on to their every word, pretending to laugh at their tasteless jokes.  At their predictability Cat purses her lips in quiet contempt.  Also true to her expectations several “Explainers” are gathering around here and there across the hall in front of certain paintings and sculptures, wearing mostly black trying to out-whisper each other.  But to Cat’s delight, and no doubt given tonight’s subject, there are also several groups of women with definitely-not-painted-on eyebrows, wearing chadors or beautifully intricate hijabs discussing art; and handsome, brown-haired men dressed in mid-thigh-long shirts sporting carefully maintained beards with awestruck or proud smiles on their faces.

Cat turns on her heels and walks into the next room with a tiny smile on her face.  
This one is significantly smaller.  Almost as if the curators were counting on the fact that only a few brave souls would dare to expose themselves to something as hard to comprehend as expressionist, abstract-figurative art.  And judging by the number of visitors who seem to dawdle across the room in a slight daze, the curators were right in their assumptions.

Before Cat would even begin to look at the first painting, her eyes involuntarily glide over the handful visitors of the room.

This is where she sees _Her_ for the first time.

And just like that, in a blink of an eye, Cat Grant’s breath is taken away.

The Woman is in her early fifties, perhaps a year or two older than Cat.  Even though Cat can only see her profile, she feels that this Woman wears her age with an exceptional, effortless grace.  She has a modest, floor-length, long-sleeved, cobalt blue dress on with a thin, brass belt around her trim waist.  The dress has a foreign, strange cut, on anyone else it surely would look disturbingly eccentric.  Yet the Woman’s poise and the soft fall of the fabric let her appear regal and alluring.  Despite the modest cut of her dress, she is not wearing a veil or anything else on her head; her long blonde hair falls freely to mid-back.  She stands absolutely motionlessly in front of a painting.  The only sign of just how absorbed she is in the colours and forms are her wide-opened eyes.  Her posture is ramrod straight, but on her it looks natural, a mere part of her graceful appearance.  She is leaning slightly forward to the canvas, almost as if she wants to fall into the swirling colours.

She is absolutely breath-taking.       
In this very moment, looking at this Woman, for the first time in her life Cat truly understands the allure of Klimt’s art.

Yet, not her beauty compels Cat to look at her mesmerised.   
It is her presence that makes the Woman truly captivating.

Cat already feels the intoxicating rush that overwhelms one’s mind and soul in the face of an unexpected possibility to discover something truly extraordinary.  A rush that freezes the body on the spot, but pushes the mind to soar.  A rush that results in a uniquely sharp, single instance of consciousness that no matter what happens now, one’s life is changed.

Cat knows with all the certainty of her being that this Woman’s story is one of a kind, without parallels.

The more she looks at her, the obvious it is that Cat isn’t the only one affected by her intense presence.  She doesn’t talk to anyone, Cat is not even sure that She perceives anything else from the outside world aside from that single painting.  The others in the room give Her wide berth seemingly without a conscious thought on their part, their voices drop to whispers and slowly, without lingering they all leave, until no one else is left but Cat and the stranger.

The Woman slightly tilts her head and a barely-there smile appears in the corner of her mouth.  She still doesn’t lift her eyes from the canvas.

These small movements however finally shake Cat out of her stupefied state.  Still absolutely mesmerised she slowly walks up to Her.  She fleetingly looks at the canvas that managed to captivate the Woman this much.  She doesn’t falter when she sees a red blob blending with lighter hues of red.  Instead, she almost reverently asks the only possible question.

“What do you see?”

She stands a pace away from the Woman, intently looking at her.  At this close Cat can see that She has faint crow’s feet at the corner of her eyes and small laugh lines around her mouth.  By not looking at the painting Cat’s meaning that she wants to hear, understand, how this stranger experiences the world becomes clear.  She knows, her question is awfully personal, bold even to begin a conversation with.

Perhaps that’s why a surprised, tiny frown plays at the Woman’s brows when she finally looks at Cat.  Now that she turned her head Cat sees that she has a single streak of shocking white hair above her left eye.  And those eyes!  The three shades of blue certainly make a beautiful eye-colour, but the deep sadness and haunting loss in them are what render Cat unable to look away.     
She truly looks like a Klimt-painting come alive.          
Cat repeats her question in a slight whisper, but with no less intent.

At Cat’s unrelenting, unapologetic curiosity and at her boldness the Woman pulls her lips into an amused almost-smile.

“Shirazeh Houshiary’s art is fascinating, because she tries to visualise perception, an essence of one’s own self in a moment of transcendence, thus in a process of disintegration.”  The Woman says at last in a quite murmur.  Her voice is deep, warm and slightly raspy, almost as if she hadn’t talked to anyone in a long time.  Her accent is rich and unlike anything Cat has ever heard before.  If Cat were to hazard a guess, she’d say, Her mother tongue is definitely neither one of the Italic, nor one of the Slavic languages.

The Woman’s non-answer also makes two things abundantly clear for Cat: She is knowledgeable about art and She is a very private person.  Cat has a feeling she has to do something to move their conversation to a slightly different flow, if she hopes to satisfy her fascination and curiosity about this woman.

Cat calculatingly looks at the Woman’s profile.  She is obviously a guarded person, yet she still hasn’t completely closed off, in a way she is even indulging Cat, which means Cat has to stay true to her straightforward manner.  But she also needs to be more honest, more open, if she wants to get the Woman to talk properly, if she wants to understand just why she finds Her extraordinary.  A quid pro quo approach might work.  Before she could say anything however, the Woman throws her question back at her.

“What do _you_ see?”  Her lovely accent can’t quite hide her amused undertones.  And when she turns away from the canvas and looks at Cat with those impossible blue eyes, the faint wrinkles in the corners of her eyes becoming more apparent in her amusement, Cat realises that the Woman doesn’t rightfully know what to think of their strange little exchange.  At this point Cat herself isn’t sure.  She just knows she wants to spend time in this Woman’s company.  Her poise, her gestures, everything about this Woman is just unbelievably graceful, elegant and the Woman herself is beautiful.  Yet, if this were a mere strong attraction or lust on Cat’s part, she wouldn’t necessarily feel compelled to be in the Woman’s company.  She certainly wouldn’t be mesmerised by Her presence.  And she definitely wouldn’t feel this aggravated because she doesn’t understand her reaction to Her.  At all.

The Woman lifts her brow playfully.  And Cat reminds herself uneasily of her own idea.  Quid pro quo.  Even if it is against her nature to open up to anyone, least of all to a total stranger.  She takes a deep breath and begins in an atypical, slightly uncertain tone.

“I don’t…  I am not knowledgeable about art.”  Cat admits haltingly.  And to make everything even worse, she feels her cheeks become warm with a blush.  After all, Cat Grant doesn’t admit any weaknesses.  But her brutal honesty is clearly the right way to approach Her and move their conversation to a different, hopefully more rewarding direction.  Because the Woman’s amusement vanishes, she softens around her eyes, which lets her somehow appear less guarded.  Cat continues, before she loses her courage, or rather before she becomes too nauseated from baring her mind this much to a complete stranger.

“I am a storyteller.  I suppose one could say that.  I seek stories behind people, behind objects.”  Cat finishes and fleetingly looks over the Woman’s face, before she is again able to hold eye contact.

“Is that why you sought me out?”  The Woman asks and this time her face is completely closed off, expressionless even.

“No.  Yes.  Somewhat.”  Cat growls at her own ineloquence.  She is a middle-aged woman, whose success hardly can be measured by mere mortal standards, a mother, an accomplished journalist and the drop-dead gorgeous ruler of media.  Yet here she is, practically stammering to an admittedly gorgeous woman of her own age, like she were in the second year of elementary having her first crush on her teacher.

Strangely enough, Cat wants Her to understand.  So she closes her eyes for a spell and concentrates on the threads of a story she can see.  She opens her eyes, looks in the Woman’s blue eyes and begins to explain in a soft tone.

“You command this whole room with your presence.”  She carelessly flicks her wrist to indicate the space around them.  “Subconsciously.  You are not even aware of it.”         
She lets her hand fall to her waist, shifts her balance and juts out her hips sideways in her typical power stance.  If she is laying her cards on the table, robing herself from the advantage of her hidden observations in the process, she is at least going to do it in an upright, fighting position.  She doesn’t look away from the Woman’s eyes.

“You are guarded, obviously a very private person.  Yet, you indulge the ramblings of a complete stranger.  Your eyes speak of unimaginable loss, yet…”  Cat trails off, she slowly motions with her free hand between them and in the direction of the painting that has earlier overwhelmed the Woman.  Her meaning is clear with those two small gestures, even without words.

Cat looks unseeing to the side for a moment to concentrate on the story that she does see, to gather her thoughts.  She makes and holds eye contact with the Woman before she continues.

“I have a feeling, you have an extraordinary story.”  Cat doesn’t stop when she hears the Woman’s sharp exhale, and when she sees how She subconsciously leans back away from her.  Instead she carries on.  She knows she has to say this, before any hope of a true conversation, more than that, an exchange with this Woman are gone.

“However, I also feel that your story cannot be told for whatever reason.  Perhaps the proper words don’t even exist yet.  And even if you were to tell it, I highly doubt that anyone could understand it.  So in a way yes, I am here because of a story.  But not because I want to tell or listen to or understand it.  Contrary to popular belief, I am not that presumptuous.  Besides, we don’t know each other.  And there are stories that ask for familiarity, respect and trust.”  Cat pauses, they both stare at each other, one guarded the other calculatingly.

“Your story defines you.”  Cat says slowly at last as her gaze glides over the Woman’s face and frame.  “But also, at the same time, it is merely a part of everything that you are.”  She makes eye contact again as she emphatically finishes.  “A mere part.  And you?  The whole you?  You are captivating.”  When the Woman doesn’t say anything or react in any visible way, Cat tries to put her need - that lacks any conscious decision on her part – to approach this Woman into clearer words.  “You, as whole are captivating.  And I just…  I wanted to understand part of that, see how your mind works; hear how you experience the world, anything that would explain why your presence is this mesmerising.  The personal history that can be recounted in words, if the proper words exist is always, always just a fraction of all of the stories that make up a person.  So in a way, yes I am here because of a story as it is a part of you, but no, that isn’t my main reason.  I am…  I haven’t earned the honour of listening to your personal history, I am not sure I ever could.  But there are instances, where the untold, the not yet realised stories that lie beyond one’s personal history are much more compelling.  In my eyes, a person’s main structure is built from the personal history, but the finer, at times the truly important points, how they carry themselves, how they move, their decisions, their presence, all of these rise from everything that is beyond a personal history.”

Cat Grant never explains, least of all her motivations.  Except, apparently for Her.

The Woman doesn’t say anything.  She just tilts her head slightly, even this small gesture is graceful, and looks seriously at Cat with those sad, deep blue eyes of hers.

“To recognise loss as that, you have to have intimate knowledge of it.”  She quietly remarks at last while she is looking into Cat’s eyes.  Her accent and the foreign rhythm she uses in her speech lend the sentence a velvety, decadent melody.  If Cat wouldn’t understand the words themselves, she would think She is reciting a strange, broken poem.  But since she understands, her breath hitches, her hand involuntarily flies up to her stomach in a futile attempt to protect herself from the sudden onslaught of memories.  Hearing those words, she is immediately reminded of _him_.  But before she can truly lose herself in carefully, long-buried reminders of her failures and shortcomings, She speaks again.

“You are a curious human-...”  Which is perhaps an odd choice of words, but the Woman looks kindly at Cat, without any kind of judgement.  She trails off, brings her tone slightly up at the end of the sentence.

“Cat.”  Supplies Cat the answer for the unspoken question.

“That is short for Catherine, isn’t it?”  Cat has always hated her full name, because she can’t stand that she shares it with her mother.  But the way it passes this Woman’s lips, with a hard “K” and “t”, an elegantly, with the tip of her tongue rolled “r” and a clear, non-English sounding “a” instead of the usual open “e”, making the name similar to Katrine, Cat can’t help but nod with a slight tremble.

“And you are?”  She asks, and to her deepest mortification there is a hint of breathlessness in her voice.  The Woman just flashes a joyful, sincere smile, the faint wrinkles around her lips and eyes become more pronounced, her eyes twinkle mischievously.  As impossible as this sounds, in this moment she looks even more gorgeous.  And Cat immediately knows that She is not going to answer.  True to her expectations, they stare at each other without any words.

The Woman’s smile slowly disappears.  She looks at Cat intently and asks at last.           
“What story do you see then, Katrine?”  She elegantly motions with her hand towards the next painting.

Cat looks at her searchingly.  There is something between them, the atmosphere has changed slightly.  She can’t put her fingers on it, how exactly, she just feels this is an important moment.  So she decides to play along.

She steps up to the painting, looks at it, her gaze moves down to its title and only after that she takes it truly in.  Cat allows herself to feel its colours, the painting’s world and she lets her mind soar with associations, feelings and images until the beginning of a story becomes almost tangible under her fingertips.

“Look at the colours!”  She murmurs enraptured.  “The painting is mostly made of one colour, green and its hues, there are also two or three other colours, but they too are close to green on the colour palette.  All in all, this is a pleasant painting to look at.”  She pauses, shifts her gaze and sees how the Woman is looking curiously at her.

Cat takes another look at the painting.  She feels the story even stronger now, her breath quickens.  With her right hand she is almost caressing the air in front of her subconsciously, as if her fingers were searching for the story, while she looks absolutely absorbed at the canvas.

“Its title, Amour, however gives it a whole different dimension in my eyes.”  She says at last.  She is so concentrated that she doesn’t even realise how her voice has become huskier.  “This is the story of how a relationship died.  Yes, there is still love left, the dominating green implies a loveliness, a certain fondness.  But notice how the painting is almost monochrome, how the darker colours take on clear-cut, everyday geometric shapes.  There is no passion, no challenge, no fascination!  Just a familiar comfortability.  Some might find this kind of love, its stability, familiarity and the history behind it no doubt reassuring, soothing even.  But for me a love like this would be nothing but suffocating.  I don’t find beauty or fulfilment in relationships like this.  There has to be challenge, respect, passion, fascination with the other’s mind and their body, if they too are inclined.”  Cat trails off.

Her eyes move to the next painting, this too bears the title Amour.  She walks up to it determinedly, she feels that the Woman is following her.        
“Look at this!”  Cat beings, her gestures are more animated, she is using both of her hands to motion towards the painting.  “This is the stellar opposite of the previous one!  This is a battlefield with no small amount of blood.  The colours are bold, harsh even, red, oranges and cold blues.  They don’t mix at all.  They just exist next to each other.  Cutting into each other in the most jarring, disturbing way possible.  This is a story of a love that ended in tears, screams and in deep scars.  Been there, done that, never again doing that.”  She emphatically exclaims in a for her atypical manner with a tiny sneer on her face.

“This painting however-…”  Cat stalks up to the last one of the Amour-series.  “There is a balance in its asymmetry.  Two worlds meet each other, they slowly meld and create something always moving, something beautiful together.  The reds and blues balance, challenge and emphasise each other.  Without each other they would be incomplete, just an essenceless, empty shade of a perhaps pleasing colour.  Their combined existence is what brings out the true beauty in them.  Yet, notice how they don’t merge, they stay separate entities.  Here, in this love’s story you can feel the challenge, the dynamics, the passion, respect, playfulness even, and also the heartache and happiness they have overcome together.  These colours speak of harmony in their thrilling, constant state of motion.  This is a story of a beautiful love.”

Cat turns and grins excitedly at the Woman.  Their eyes finally meet again.  Now Cat sees how for the first time this evening the Woman looks at her with wide-eyed fascination.  And for the first time in twenty-three years Cat Grant blushes slightly in self-consciousness.  It has been so long since she has met someone, who is neither looking at her with brainless admiration because of her achievements, or with a disturbing hunger because of the power she wields over media, or simple lust because of her looks, but with honest fascination because of how her mind works.  Cat’s wide grin turns into a small but sincere smile that the Woman reciprocates in the same manner.

“Katrine.”  She says at last in that lovely, melodic accent of hers as she looks at Cat with unveiled interest and actual affection.

If this were at any other given moment, not after a perhaps bizarre but nonetheless beautiful time spent in the company of a mesmerising strange woman, Cat would scoff and deflect with a sarcastic remark.  But after this evening, after feeling just how captivated she is with this Woman, she can’t do anything else but offer her hand in a quiet invitation.         
Her palm is facing the ground, fingers are stretched out.  For a long moment the Woman just stares at her hand, but slowly she reaches out and takes it.  Their eyes meet again.  They smile at each other.  The Woman’s thumb brushes against the inside of Cat’s wrist in a leisurely caress.  When she hears how Cat’s breathe hitches, her smile widens.

It shouldn’t be possible for a woman in her fifties, who has had an obviously anything but sheltered life, who is also _this_ breath-taking to smile like _that_.  She smiles at Cat with an honest interest and a hint of joy.  Almost as if she wouldn’t believe just what fascinating associations, stories she has heard about the paintings.  Almost as if she were happy to discover what Cat saw in those paintings.  This, that she is apparently able to feel happiness because of something so small, something that a total stranger shared with her, lets her appear innocent and just so achingly honest.                 
Cat has a feeling the Woman might tell lies, if she were asked about her past, she might lie with her words, but looking at Her at this moment, Cat knows this woman is one of the most honest persons she has ever met.  Despite her secrets and probable lies; because of her disposition.

It shouldn’t be possible for a gorgeous woman in her fifties with a difficult past to smile this honestly, this openly, to be this joyful, despite the lingering loss in her eyes.  Yet here she is, looking at Cat absolutely unaware of her own allure.  She might be a breath-taking, mysterious stranger, but with her honest disposition, her willingness to listen to others and with her joy over experiencing art and stories, she is anything but a seductress.  And Cat can’t help herself but find Her even more captivating.  Who in this world charms others with listening to them enraptured and smiling at them with an honest, respectful interest?  Cat tightens her hold on the Woman’s hand for a moment to make sure she truly is real.  Their smiles slowly turn into grins as they look at each other.

Cat looks searchingly into the Woman’s eyes.  She lets her gaze drop to Her lips.  Her heartbeats quicken.  She is not closer understanding her fascination with the Woman, but now in this moment she realises she wants to feel Her.  She looks up again into Her eyes.  The Woman’s gaze has become hooded.

“Katrine.”  She says again, but now with a hint of breathlessness in her tone.

“Come with me.”  Cat exclaims suddenly.  She knows her own voice tells of her desperation, but she just can’t bring herself to care about it.

The Woman closes her eyes, tilts her head to the side.  That lone streak of white hair falls in her face.  When she opens her eyes and looks into Cat’s, her gaze is noticeably darker.  She nods.

Cat begins to walk backwards, while she is looking searchingly at the Woman.  When she sees no flicker of doubt or uncertainty on her face, she turns around and lengthens her strides.  Neither of them lets go of the other’s hand.  This time Cat doesn’t notice anything of the crowd apart from its rowdiness, she is that absorbed in just how Her warm, soft hand feels in hers.  Cat begins to draw circles with her thumb on the Woman’s back of hand.  She feels Her stepping even closer to her.

When they finally exit the building, the glass doors falling shut behind them, cutting them off from the crowd’s noise Cat feels the Woman changing her hold on her hand, so she stops and turns around.  The summer night’s breeze is playing with the Woman’s hair and dress, carrying slightly salty air with.  Warm light falls from the gallery to their feet.  Nothing but the sound of the nearby ocean and far away cars break the silence.  They look at each other.  The Woman slowly lifts her left hand and runs her fingertips across Cat’s cheekbone in a barely there, soft caress.  Cat leans into her touch.

“May I?”  The Woman whispers at last looking into Cat’s eyes.  Her gaze drops to Cat’s lips, before she looks up again.  Her fingers linger a breath away from Cat’s jaw.  Cat wets her lips and nods.

The Woman caresses Cat’s face softly before her hand glides to Cat’s hair and the side of her neck.  Only then leans she in, holding eye contact as long as possible.  She gently kisses Cat’s upper then lower lip.  She leans back again to check if Cat is still all right with this new level of contact.  She looks so earnestly at Cat and behaves just so plainly honourable that Cat has to chuckle.  How is She real?!  That fleeting kiss, those earnest blue eyes just make Cat desire her even more.

She reaches out with a playful growl and puts her hands on the Woman’s hips.  She pulls Her in, looking into happy blue eyes.  Their noses almost touch, they share the same breath.  The Woman’s eyes twinkle mischievously but her earnestness hasn’t completely vanished yet.  She opens her mouth, but Cat cuts her off before she could say anything.

“Don’t.”  She just knows what the Woman is about to say.  The Woman flashes that small, amused smile of hers.

“I am telling you, if you utter a word about my virtue I will bite you!”  Cat playfully murmurs into Her lips as she bunches up the Woman’s dress in her fists.

A mischievous grin is her only answer.  So the moment the Woman opens her mouth Cat quickly leans in, bites Her lower lip, soothes it with her tongue and sucks on it.  The Woman moans and her knees apparently go weak, because she sways and leans against Cat.  Cat embraces her waist and holds her tightly against her.

Now that their bodies are pressed up against each other, all traces of their previous playfulness vanishes, an all-consuming desire overwhelms them both.  Now they are kissing in earnest, quickly finding their common rhythm.  Their hands clutching at the other’s back, hair, nape of neck, their moans, sharp breaths tell the other of their preferences.  The Woman likes soft caresses and tongue, Cat enjoys bites, her lips being sucked on and less tongue.  They stumble and meet again, one kiss turning into several, until nothing but the person in their arms and the meeting of their bodies exist.

Cat is clutching at the Woman’s back; She is holding her by the front of her dress.  Cat leans back, looks at the Woman’s kiss-swollen lips, dishevelled hair and breathlessly, shamelessly exclaims:                
“You are magnificent.”

The Woman’s eyes are impossibly darker, pupils dilated.  She murmurs an answer without realising that she has slipped into her mother tongue.  The short sentence is rich in vowels, softly rolled “r”-s, has a rhythm like Cat has never heard before.  The Woman doesn’t lift her eyes from Cat’s lips.  Her hands drift down to Cat’s hips.  Her deeper voice, her tone and her overall breathlessness make Cat’s knees go weak.  Cat doesn’t need to understand, she feels what the Woman means in every part of her where She is touching her.  
It shouldn’t be possible, but Cat desires her even more.  She hums in her delight.  She reaches up, softly caresses the Woman’s face.        
“I know, Darling.  I know.”  She says.

Cat leans in, brushes her face against the Woman’s, cheek to cheek, buries her nose in Her hair and breaths Her in.  The Woman pulls her closer, She again begins to softly run her hands up and down on Cat’s back.  They stay this way, gently swaying, until Cat feels confident enough that she isn’t going to do anything indecent in public.  She is too old for being ravished on the beach after all.  Or rather, she is too much of a public figure to do something like that, she doesn’t have the freedom of her youth anymore.

Cat leans back and meets the Woman’s eyes.  She still feels, now even stronger this strange connection between them.  She doesn’t know what this means, especially if they are going to have only a night together.  But as she looks into Her face, again that earnest expression meets her, Cat knows she wants to witness the changes in those eyes.  Merely satisfying her own body’s needs wouldn’t be enough.           
She wants to be with this Woman.  She wants to experience Her.          
Cat would never delude herself into thinking that she can simply _have_ someone.  Especially a captivating woman like Her.  Yes, she is a possessive woman, but only with her achievements and material things.  She has always had to fight for them after all.  But she is decent or perhaps cynical enough to know, one can not possess, simply have or own another person.  So she steps back slightly, her hands drift down to hold the Woman’s hands.  She looks seriously into Her eyes and asks in a whisper.

“Come with me?”

The Woman looks at her searchingly for a moment before she nods.  Cat flashes her tiniest grin and the Woman chuckles.  Her eyes turn mischievous again, She slowly leans in and quickly steals a kiss.  Cat laughs heartily at her antics.

“You are going to have to pay for that.”  She playfully threatens.             
“Bring it out, Katrine!”  She says with a joyful, wrinkles-deepening smile and a slight frown.  She is obviously unsure, whether she has used the right figure of speech.  Cat doesn’t correct her.  She finds her endearing.  After everything Cat has seen of Her tonight, of course She would be an even bigger contradiction and turn out to be endearing as well.  Despite Her past, despite Her age, despite Her disposition and Her overall gorgeousness.

Cat can’t help but kiss her needily again.      
She doesn’t understand their connection.  She doesn’t understand just why she is this enraptured by this Woman.  She doesn’t understand their encounter…           
But she can’t wait to experience Her.             
See how She moves.  How Her expression changes.  How Her skin feels against hers.  Whether She bites her lips or allows Herself to moan freely.  Whether She vocalises what She desires.  Whether the skin above Her upper lip is going to be beaded with perspiration or it will run down Her neck.              
Cat can’t wait to experience, how this Woman’s embrace feels.             
How Her scent changes.   
How She tastes…                               
She swallows.

“Come along, Darling.”  Cat says, voice impossibly deeper.  She reaches out and takes Her hands.

They are still holding hands in Cat’s town car, until they begin to trade soft caresses, straying over hands and underarms.  When the Woman’s hand falls to Cat’s knee she looks up again seriously at Cat without moving further.  Cat in turn shifts and straddles Her lap.  
“Seriously, you are not of this world.”  Cat whispers teasingly, but to her astonishment the Woman looks away and blushes.  Cat kisses her softly on the cheek.          
“I meant it as a compliment.  I very much enjoy how considerate, respectful and caring you are.”  She smiles sincerely at the Woman.  When She looks up shyly – and just how could a woman in her fifties with an as gorgeous body as hers be shy?! –, Cat continues seriously.            
“You have my permission to touch me.”  The Woman’s eyes darken, she swallows thickly and her hands drift slightly upwards on Cat’s thighs, bunching up Cat’s dress.

Cat trembles in anticipation.  She wets her lips and asks.  “Darling?”  Her hands are hovering at the Woman’s face and shoulder.  Her meaning is clear.  She is waiting for the Woman’s explicit permission.  Since She went to such great lengths to ask Cat a nonverbal answer wouldn’t be enough.

“Yes, Katrine, yes.”  She breaths out looking into Cat’s eyes, before she kisses Cat heatedly.

Her answer and her lips make Cat moan in abandon.  And when she feels Her raking Her nails against the back of her thighs, inching upwards impossibly slowly, until finally, finally Her hands are on her rear, kneading, Cat grinds down.  Cat fists the Woman’s hair and bites her neck.   
She is already drunk on Her scent, Her moans, Her skin.

When they finally stumble into Cat’s penthouse still exchanging urgent kisses, the door falling shut behind them, Cat leans back to look at Her face again.  Her cheeks are rosy, her lips kiss-swollen, her hair dishevelled.  She looks at Cat with actual fondness and perhaps a hint of awe.  Her smile is close-lipped but warm.  As soon as Cat has stepped back, she lets her hands fall from Cat’s body.  She is waiting to see whether Cat has changed her mind now that they are in her flat.

Cat’s eyes drift down to Her heaving chest, the slightly disarrayed blue dress, to those long fingers that twitch in her direction.  Yet, the Woman doesn’t move her hands.  Cat meets Her eyes again, her small smile turns into a lazy grin and she slowly presses her body against Hers.

“Still with me, Darling?”  She whispers into the soft skin under the Woman’s jaw, before she plants a kiss there.

“Yes.”  Is the breathless answer. And for the first time this night, Cat feels how the Woman’s right arm settles against the small of her back, Her left along her spine and Her fingers splay out across Cat’s nape of neck.  Almost as if She couldn’t hold Cat close enough.

Cat’s breath hitches.  This particular embrace is remarkably intimate for a night like this between two complete strangers.  It is intimate even for their curious encounter, however how intent they both are on experiencing each other’s minds and bodies, however how captivated they both are by the other.   
Cat is a disillusioned person, she doesn’t have any expectations from this night onwards.  Yet, she can’t help but let one more of her walls crumble and allow herself to sink into this embrace.  It has been so long since she has felt that she is needed, not for sexual gratification or for a power move, but because she herself is good enough.  That someone wants to be with her because she is good enough.  Here, in this embrace she is not the unwanted, forever disappointment of a daughter, neither the twice divorced spectacular failure of human.  But a woman, who is good enough even outside of her professional life, outside of her role as a mother the second time around.  A woman, who is good enough without her masks, roles and position.  A woman who is good enough on her own right without any achievements and outside standards.

She reaches up and begins to softly caress the Woman’ collarbone with the tips of her fingers.  When she feels how Her body slightly sags against her, she knows, she is not the only one who suddenly has realised that this strange encounter of theirs holds an unexpected emotional meaning for both of them.  
She wonders what this night could offer for Her.  Well, aside from the obvious.

Cat looks up into Her face.  She is met with a soft smile.  This time she doesn’t hold herself back, she leans up on her tiptoes to kiss those beautiful crow’s feet at the corner of Her eyes.  The Woman laughs at her antics.  Cat’s hand strays up to caress her laugh lines as well, but She turns her head and softly nips at Cat’s index finger.  At the unexpected move Cat gasps, but before she could say anything She kisses her.

When they part, panting, Cat asks:

“You are not much for words, are you?”

“Why?  You can feel parts of my story without them.”  With her accent another facet of the sentence gains emphasis.  She looks seriously at Cat, almost as if she were implying a different kind of trust.  “Besides,” - she continues with a teasing smile - “there are so many other things I could do with my lips.”  She trails off as she leans down to kiss and suck along Cat’s neck.

Cat’s eyes fall shut, she bites her lips so she doesn’t moan.  She is already so far gone that she can’t be bothered by a corny cliché.  She reaches out and fists the front of Her dress.  “I like the way you think.”  She says before she kisses Her.  Soon, still kissing they stumble down the hallway towards Cat’s bedroom.

Once there Cat flicks her reading lamp on.  Even if the room stays in semi-darkness, she prefers its orange glow to the harsh, cold light of the ceiling lamp.

She turns back to Her.  They slowly walk to each other, until Cat stops in front of Her.  She steps out of her pumps and reaches to her back to unzip her dress without breaking eye contact.  She lets the garment fall to her feet.  She knows she looks striking, especially in matching satin, forest green underwear.  With her hand on her hips, in her typical pose that tells of her confidence she challengingly lifts her brow. 

The Woman stares at her, speechless, for a moment She is not even breathing.  Her gaze becomes even more hooded.  She meets Cat’s eyes with a small smile and unclasps Her belt.  The brass clatters against the floor when She drops it.  She reaches to Her nape of neck and undoes the fastening of Her dress.

Cat stares mesmerised at the ever looser getting blue fabric.  As the dress slides lower, baring Her collarbones, her shoulders, Cat bites her lips in anticipation.             
Finally it falls completely from Her body.

And Cat Grant perhaps for the third time in her life is absolutely speechless.

Under this warm light the Woman’s body clad in nothing but a burgundy pair of panties is a beautiful harmony of lean, fine-muscled and softened by age or nature planes.

Cat soundlessly closes the distance between them.  She can’t help but reverently caress Her face, her collarbones.  She can’t help but marvel at what touching a woman, feeling one so close, again, after all this time feels.  She can’t help but marvel at the privilege what touching _this_ Woman means.

Between mapping each other’s bodies with confident but soft caresses and unhurried kisses they strip each other of the rest of their clothes.                  
They kneel at the bed, facing each other.

Their kisses turn more heated, their touches firmer.   
Soon they sit down, legs interwoven, grinding, rocking against each other.

As it turns out, the Woman keeps her eyes closed and perspiration isn’t running down Her neck, but She is quite vocal.  Bits and pieces of broken sentences are moaned against Cat’s skin.  She has slipped again into her mother tongue, without noticing it.  But Cat doesn’t need to understand Her short, murmured phrases to recognise them.  They are compliments.  Encouragements.  She responds in kind.

“You feel so good.”  She says breathlessly.  “Yes, Darling,” –she moans, encourages – “there!”

Their fingers find each other and soon nothing else matters, but the body in their arms, their frantic heartbeats and sensations, feelings overpowering their minds.

Afterwards Cat is panting and She is taking small, measured breaths.  They stare at each other as they let their hands fall away.  Both of them move back slightly so their bodies aren’t touching anymore.

This is the moment where the night should end, with the party who doesn’t belong walking away.  And Cat is not deluding herself, she knows exactly what this is.

That’s why she fists her sheets, so she doesn’t reach out, despite the feeling of something having been cut off.  Despite the feeling that she is not yet back to herself.  Despite the feeling that she needed a fleeting touch to reassure herself, this truly happened; and to keep the feeling of emptiness that she has been used just as much as she has used the other person at bay.  Sometimes she hates how she craves affection, now apparently even from strangers.  But she is not going to reach out.  She isn’t going to lie to herself just for one laughable need.  Even if she doesn’t understand their connection.  She isn’t going to make something out of this situation that it simply isn’t.

“Katrine?”  She interrupts Cat’s musings.  There is a hint of uncertainty around Her eyes as She looks searchingly at Cat.

And Cat, hearing that tone and seeing that expression reaches out in a moment of atypical carelessness and tenderly brushes that dishevelled, lone streak of white hair out of Her face.  Before she can snap her hand back, She leans into her touch.

This is when Cat realises she is not alone in her need.  This is when she decides to hell with being cautious.  After all, she can always revel in tonight’s memories tomorrow with a glass of Scotch, carefully avoiding the topic of affection even in her own mind.  But now, she gives in.  Mostly because of she hasn’t been the first one to ask.

Cat allows her hand to slide from the Woman’s face to Her collarbones, her fingertips running along them in a gentle caress.  She can’t explain why she is drawn to this spot on Her body, but she is done with denying herself.  Their eyes meet and this time she sees warmth and curiosity on Her face.

The Woman silently offers Her hand, in a mirror of Cat’s earlier gesture.  When Cat accepts, She pulls her closer, until she sits on Her lap.  Again, Her right arm settles against the small of her back, Her left along her spine and her fingers splay out across Cat’s nape of neck.  The gesture is still too intimate for their encounter.  But it is not possessive, this is why Cat sinks into the embrace.  Even if she can’t comprehend why the Woman apparently wants to hold her as close as possible.

 _‘Why?’_   Cat asks herself as she lifts her hand to caress her collarbones.  Her eyes fall to her lips; she absentmindedly plants soft kisses on her laugh lines.  _‘I am grounding her.’_   She suddenly realises.  And with that she moves out of Her lap.

Cat lays down without a word and guides Her to lean her head on her chest so She can hear her heart beat.  Cat doesn’t know what could drive someone to ask a total stranger, even someone as cynical as her, for the illusion of safety and familiarity even for a night.  And frankly, she is not that sure she wants to find out, but for now she can be here for Her.  One more bizarre event hardly would make tonight any less strange.

They don’t say anything, yet their silence is comfortable.  The Woman settles against Cat, listening to her heartbeats and Cat begins to run her hand through her hair slowly until she falls asleep.

When she wakes up, she is alone, unsurprisingly and thankfully.  The morning after would have been definitely too awkward for both of them.  She contently stretches and is about to throw the blanket off of her, when the rustling noise of paper disturbs her.

She reaches over and to her astonishment, she finds a handwritten note by Her to her.   
Given how little the Woman has talked, and just how little She has shared of herself, Cat immediately recognises this as an extraordinary gesture.        
This is the Woman’s way to offer Cat a story of her own in return.

Before she could read the note, she curiously looks at the script.           
The Woman’s letters lean distinctly to the right, which mean strong ties to her past.  Both her loops above and below are well-defined, indicating a balanced personality between matters of mind and body.  She also uses several additional loops, picking up the pen only at the very end of a word, never between letters, which could mean a fiercely loyal personality, who keeps the ties that she forms.  Her “o”-s though look like pretzels and that is a sign for keeping secrets to herself.

Curious that the Woman has decided to tell parts of Her story this way.  Cat can’t help but let out a pleased little hum.  Which quickly turns to a full belly-laugh when she reads the note.

 _Cathrine,_  
I took the liberty of taking your chosen scent with me.                
  


For a moment Cat looks uncomprehending amusement at the paper, but as she looks up to her vanity table, where the bottle of perfume should be that she had worn yesterday, she can’t help but chuckle at the unexpected mischievousness.

_Until we meet again.  
Kara_

_‘Her name is Kara.’_ Cat thinks with a small smile. _  
‘And so another story begins.’_

**Author's Note:**

> first things first, the title is an allusion to Klimt's portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer i, also known as The Woman in Gold.
> 
> Kara's sentence about the painting is paraphrised from Shirazeh Houshiary's website. I thought it would be fitting to stay this true to her thoughts, because in this story Kara is secretive and the more I read about H's art, the more I believed Kara as portrayed here would truly enjoy and *feel* it the intended way.
> 
> Cat's associations are my own, I haven't read up on those paintings for exactly the reason to give a non-professional, associative impression of them.
> 
> a few headcanons:  
> -yes, you guessed right, Kara's dress is similar to Allura's. she clings to small comforts like this in a world, where even after decades everything is still so alien  
> -her accent: there were no Jeremiah and Alex to consequently correct her and repeat her sentences until she got it right for her own safety  
> -not being fostered by the Ds is also why she relies this much on verbal clues, more than on a still foreign body language
> 
> why Iranian art? when I was contemplating, how two middle-aged, sophisticated women could meet, I choose an exhibition. but I didn't want to do anything well-known or Eurocentric, so for this story I had to research Iranian contemporary art made by women. pm-me, if you want other names!
> 
> I planned 4 more instalments for this story, updates may be slow though, so prepare yourself. I am doing research for the university, preparing for language exams and doing research for a longer supercat fic.
> 
> lastly: with this story I am stepping out of my comfort zone, to put it mildly. in genre and themes as well. and also, English is my 3rd language, so feedback would be much appreciated.


End file.
